I received the link for this blog from a user on the Sims 3 forums who thought it was something that everyone should view. It is! I’ve bookmarked the page, and I have to keep coming back for the next chapter. You’ve inspired me to try out homelessness in TS3 myself.

I saw this via Felicia Day’s Twitter, and I am so glad I found it. This is so captivating. I am subscribing to the RSS and promptly buying myself a copy of Sims 3. I had played the original (and all the expansions) for years. I had even been a Beta tester for The Sims Online. But Sims 2 never held much appeal. I must say, this makes me want to start playing it all over again. I can’t believe how far the game has come.

This story is really compelling. This is the recommendation I put on my Facebook: “As an experiment, a games design student has created a homeless family in The Sims 3, and is blogging their lives. Alternately tragic and hilarious, this story shows how our digital doppelgangers can mirror reality too closely.” I believe this story says more than just that, but I’ll leave that up to the audience to see for themselves.

I’m now really interested in your projects related to your game design education. Do you have a blog for that? I find your POV very interesting and can imagine you’re doing other work just as compelling as this.

Also came through Felicia Day’s twitter – read all entries from the beginning and I absolutely adore it! Will continue to follow – am getting Sims 3 on Tues when my exams finish, was always going to do so but this has made me even more excited about it.

This makes me wonder. What is Kev’s backstory? Was he an Alice at one point? On the streets with a horrible parent, struggling like Alice? Or was he placed here by his own actions and circumstances? Where is Alice’s Mother? Will Alice become a Kev? And have an Alice of her own?

to think of kev as once a small homeless child makes me pity him. The fact of the matter is its quite possible that he once was an alice. With his hot-headed, insanity, and inapproproateness he could have easily flunked through school and not been able to achieve anything so that now he remains homeless. I think Alice…despite being unlucky….will somehow be able to build something for herself, maybe small but a start to improving circumstances for future generation.

I can’t help but find this little blog compelling.. my very first and continued character is a teenager who has lost his parents, and once his “guardian” managed to get herself offed during a freak accident, he grew up quickly and decided it was time he fended for himself. Surprisingly, child services didn’t seem it was necessary to grant him another guardian, or even knock on his door after the guardian had died.

Thanks to the openess of the local gym and at least the minor comforts offered by his guardian before her passing, he is now an exceptionally successful member of society, on the brink of becoming a young adult, with a fully furnished house and is one of the best minds and bodies of his city. I just wish there was a character like Alice that he could have interacted with.. come to think of it, the most interaction he’s had is with an evil fellow teenager, whom he’s declared his nemesis (and oddly keeps following him home after school, only to start multiple fights in which he loses).

As far as using the household items, he doesn’t seem to mind in the least, and due to his traits, seems to prefer offering this small service to keep anyone he’s invited in happy. As far as everything breaking, he’s had to repair everything in his house and least three times by now and is quite handy with a wrench ^_^

This story is so fascinating. It’s making me consider things I never thought about before, and I seriously feel moved to support a homeless charity. I never expected the Sims 3 to make have such deep thoughts.

Found this on EW.com’s Popwatch. It’s an absolutly heartwrenching story… even though I know Alice is a Sim, I wish I could give her a hug. Great job with the storytelling, and kudos to the makers of the Sims 3 for making this kind of real life interaction possible. I’ll be back tomorrow to check for updates.

This is such fascinating work: clever, funny, poignant, and proving something really significant about the creativity gaming invents and invokes. And serialised story-telling repopularized? – bring it on!

ohkay wow..! =[ the whole time while reading this I imagined how I would’ve done things differently, but geeez, this touched my heart..! Even though it’s just a sim, I’m really happy for her to find someone that actually excepts her not seeing only her bad traits… WOW..!

AWWWW, This is so touching. Keep the stories coming, my 4 kids, my neice (ages ranging from 6 to 18) and I gather to follow the saga of “Poor Alice”, better than the soaps… It’s great how a game can give us all something to talk about and a bit of common ground so to speak. I have loves Sims since the originals but the ai has come so far that being a voyeur is so much more fascinating now! And that Zedadiahs, so sweet and caring,(and strangely attractive:P. Where was he when I was a goodclumsyunluckyloser teen. Oh yeah, still in someones imagination, sigh. Thanx Robin and congrats on your recent Sim fame!
PS Shame on the Joy family….

I was a huuuuge Sims and Sims 2 fan, but I haven’t let myself get the Sims 3 because I now have a dissertation to write and a class to teach–neither of these things would likely get done if I had this game. Alas, I think that Alice and Kev have convinced me that those things are trivial when compared to the hours upon hours upon hours of entertainment and joy I could get from this game!

Alice becomes an adult and she and Zebadias get together and she has a baby, but as the baby starts to grow up and be as nice and sweet as Alice, but Alice came to see herself as special like that, like that’s how she fought against the pain of her traumatic upbringing, homeless with an insane and verbally, physically abusive father: her sweetness. But her kid’s growing up in with a home, which Alice resents, and is being as nice as Alice, which diminishes Alice’s, like, mental defenses against that trauma, and she goes all insane and drowns it in the bathtub and blames it on Zebadias.

They’re so cute together!! Well, I hope she reaches adulthood before he grows too old for her. They really have good chemistry and I could picture Zed taking care of her and making sure she’s always wearing a smile. Heck, I could picture them saying their vows! 😀 Hahaha. Forgive me. My imagination is going crazy for this! You got me hooked!